Update: FCC's Dish DE Order (No Longer) AWOL From Website

At press time the text of the FCC order denying over $3 billion in bidding credits to a pair of companies majority funded by Dish had been re-posted to the FCC's Web site.

The chairman Jan. 17 blogged the news that the commission had voted to deny SNR Wireless and Norths the designated entity (DE) bidding credits. Then Wednesday the order and accompanying commissioner statements were posted on the front page of the FCC's website.

By late in the day, the order and statements had disappeared.

There were  links to the decision (in various formats) in the last item in the FCC's Aug. 19 Daily Digest (a summary of actions with links to them). But the links to the DE denials were dead, leading not to the item but to an Electronic Document Management Systems (EDOCS) page that informed Web surfers that "The document you are trying to retrieve is not released or temporarily retracked."

It advised to check back in five minutes, but after numerous rechecks the document was still "retracked" at press time.

Various FCC spokespeople were unavailable for comment at press time on the disappearance, but the order had returned by 7 p.m.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.